Matt K

no, i have administrator turned on for this user. that's the point. for some reason the m.2 was telling me I wasnt an administrator, and then it failed.

so I have had a very weird experience just now. I went to update Overwatch, just to have it tell me that I cannot update it because I'm not logged in as administrator. this has never happened before. so I figured shutting down and restarting would fix the issue, just to have my pc boot abnormally (splash screen showing up on multiple monitors, overall much slower boot, getting stuck at splash screen, etc.) I had to do a hard shut down with the power button a couple times, also used the reset button to try to fix it. Upon successful boot, my m.2 is no longer detected. I have tried resetting my bios and nothing changed. Also one other weird thing that happened, the lights on my AIO reset to red, which never happens between power cycles, so not sure what caused that either. The m.2 is a 500gb 970 evo. Also, though my computer is booting now, it is booting at 1/4 the speed it used to. (obviously the m.2 is not my boot drive) so i'm confused as to why it is booting abnormally, as well as the drive not being detected. If anyone has any thoughts on possible remedies I would greatly appreciate it. oh, also Overwatch was installed on the m.2. so i have suspicions something was wrong when it gave me the administrator prompt. Update: I removed the m.2, and booted. The boot process returned to normal, no splash screen issues and it booted at the proper speed. I then powered down, reseated the m.2, and all the issues came back, slow splash screen, slow windows loading screen, and drive is still not detected. so my m.2 is the culprit behind the start up issues, on top of not being detected.

thanks for all the feedback. i have been doing some searching around, and for the processor i believe i want to use the ryzen 5 3400g, pair it with 16gb ram, and the rest all follows of course. Do you think this is a good route? (again this pc is just for internet work and powerpoints etc, but i want it to be good at that for years). However, I am having some issues finding an am4 motherboard that is mini-itx and has wifi.

@VioDuskar i luckily do have skinny fingers what is your cooling setup like? did you go with a small aio or a low profile air cooler? also what is the case fan setup if you are able to tell me

@VioDuskar roger that, any other things to watch out for? This is my first attempt at a SFF build, however I have watched endless content on building them in cases similar to that silverstone. Modular power supply is often necessary correct? also this computer will be doing no gaming, just internet and light photoshop work.

@VioDuskar that's a pretty darn good option, thanks for the feedback.

I am going to be building my sister a mini-itx build so that she could take it on the road fairly easily; I would like to keep the case as light as possible while also being durable enough to handle small dings here and there. A lot of cases seem to fit the bill but they are pretty heavy, such as the lian li tu150 without the window. Any suggestions are welcome and appreciated. Thanks!

@Bombastinator yeah that's kinda what I expected to hear, just wanted to check if anyone more knowledgeable than me knew of anything. thanks for the feedback.

@Slottr yes, I actually just made a different post in the cases forum to get some options for really small matx cases. I would just prefer to stick to mini atx if possible, simply because this system wont have a gpu so it wont be tough to build in a really small mini atx case, and I know my sister would love something the size of a small silverstone for example.

I am attempting to build a pc for my sister and she wants it as small as possible while also being inexpensive, it will primarily be used for web browsing a light photoshop work. (~$400 and keep in mind it wont need a graphics card) I am having difficulty achieving that budget for mini itx due to the premium on mini itx motherboards, does anyone know of any REALLY small micro atx cases that can somewhat compare to mini itx?

I am attempting to build a system for my sister, and this pc will only be used for web browsing a light photoshop work. She would like the pc to be as small as possible, and i have been considering some cooler master mini itx cases among others for the build. However, I have realized (and somewhat expected) mini itx mobos carry a price premium due to being less mass-produced I assume. Does anyone have any suggestions or solutions to keep the cost of the mobo down while also keeping the system as small as possible? Thanks in advance for any help.